Crushed
by L122yTorch
Summary: It's been months since Mike betrayed Harvey. He's still trying to be useful to his former mentor by providing information and useful documents for cases. One night he ventures over to Harvey's to hand deliver said useful documents. After barely being let in Mike watches his hard work be tossed aside and finally stands up for himself instead of begging for forgiveness.
1. Chapter 1

He was pounding on the door so loud that Harvey knew the neighbors would come asking if he didn't stop the rapping outside his door. He flung the door wide open, throwing Mike's balance off for a moment.

There was Harvey, still in his suit with a death glare on his face. "What do you want," he said coldly with a hot current of anger writhing beneath the words.

"Let me in." "No." "Fine, then I'll stay out here and pound on your door. I'll have you taken out of the building."

Mike cocked his head with a smirk and said "wow, I never figured you for one to run away from your issues."

"I'm not and you know it."

"So let me in, what do you have to lose?"

Reluctantly the heavy door swung open and Mike was standing in Harvey's foyer. The former mentor noticed the folders in Mike's hand and his brow furrowed. "I don't need whatever it is you brought me to help me win my case."

Quickly he snatched the files from Mike's hand and threw them on the floor. He sauntered closer to the associate. "When are you going to get it through your thick head that we are through. The past can't be undone Mike."

The crystal blue eyes looked down at the file on the floor, looked down at two days worth of work that he had managed to squeeze in during the case he and Louis were working on.

"Giving up your little office and trying to help me on cases…won't get you anywhere."

Mike looked up at the seething brown eyes and scoffed. "Unbelievable," he said in a half whisper. "You're unbelievable you know that?"

"I…apologized, begged for forgiveness even. I gave back the office as a gesture of good will and I've done all I can to still be useful to you. And nothing's changed."

"Oh and this surprises you?" Harvey said incredulously.

"What surprises me is that you're not a big enough person to accept an apology and move on," Mike said, his voice rising, taking a step towards Harvey. "I have done all I can, all I can think of to get back in your good graces. What was I supposed to do Harvey, go to prison? Because that's what Jessica threatened if I went to you that night - which she guessed I was going to do," he said.

The lofty modern apartment suddenly felt dizzyingly small and impossibly hot. The blood beneath Mike's tight collar was boiling.

"We could be recovering, but instead, you choose to hang on to things for the end of fucking eternity."

"You decide to come here to "rescue" my case for tomorrow morning, which I've already won by the way, AND disrespect me in my own house? You've got some nerve kid."

"Damn right I do," Mike growled, his voice sounding bitter and foreign. "It's why you hired me. And if you forgave me and stopped being such a little girl…"

The first thing Mike registered after the word "girl" was the searing pain in his face and head. It took a moment to realize that Harvey had punched him.

Not only was his eye going to be a swollen mess, but he managed to hit his head on the side of the door's moulding and he could feel blood trickling down his face.

"Don't you EVER speak to me like that again!" Harvey shouted at his back, his head still resting on the doorframe, now being streaked with red.

"Do you understand?"

Silence.

"I said, do you understand?" Harvey said grabbing at Mike's jacket and swinging the young man to face him.

A look of shock washed over his face as he saw a tear streaking down Mike's face, and then another. He let go of the jacket, took a step back and quickly regained his detached composure.

"You called me a girl and you're the one crying after getting punched? It's like you've never been punched before…"

"Quite the opposite," Mike said in a hoarse whisper, bringing his hand up to the gash in his head that was now bleeding profusely. Harvey looked into the some of the saddest eyes he's ever seen beneath a left eyelid that was already turning blue and yellow and swelling.

"This is the last time I'm going to say it Harvey…I'm sorry."

The words lingered in the hollow space, reverberating off the watching walls.

"But I'm done apologizing. I'm done groveling or trying to recover our friendship. I'm done."

By this point blood was streaming down Mike's left hand, slipping beneath his shirt cuff and trickling down his arm. He turned towards the door - having never felt so defeated in his life.


	2. Chapter 2

The last thing Mike expected as he his hand met the door knob was Harvey's grip on his arm.

"Where are you going?"

"Uh…home?" Mike said through a hand now soaked in blood.

"Not looking like that," he responded, pulling Mike towards the kitchen. "Just try not to drip blood everywhere."

At that Mike brought his other hand up to his face and sacrificed his entire right arm sleeve. Harvey had brought them both to the stainless steel sink and put his hand to the back of Mike's head, gently guiding it down to the sink.

The water was a shock to the system and the sink quickly turned a bright cherry red. Mike watched as the blood and water swirled down the drain. When the water began to run a light blush, Harvey shut it off and told Mike to stay put.

He remained hunched over the sink, his blonde hair dripping cold water, his left eye screaming in pain. He heard footsteps approaching and felt a towel being put into his hands.

"Is it okay if blood gets on this?"

"Yeah."

He brought the towel up to his face and turned to lean his lower back against the sink. He had no delusions that this was in any way an act of kindness, but rather an act of maintaining his image.

The building staff knew full well who Mike was and that he looked fine when he got there. There's no way Harvey would let him walk through his building looking like he had his faced smashed up.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have hit you," the words sounded reluctant yet remorseful from Harvey.

"It's okay," Mike replied, "I FORGIVE YOU," he half-shouted with a smile crouching behind his lips.

Harvey only smiled with his eyes and then set down the white box he was carrying on the counter next to Mike.

Blood had began to once more drip down Mike's face. And with an expression-less face, Harvey took in the sight of his former associate, the rose red blood a stark contrast to his pale porcelain skin. His sandy blonde hair looked much darker now that it was wet and the skin around his left eye had expanded and shifted colors - blood settling right beneath the surface.

The white box with a red cross on it clicked open and Harvey pulled out gauze, antiseptic and bandages.

The clear liquid burned like a mother as it hit the gash in Mike's head. A part of him wondered if Harvey enjoyed this infliction of pain…nah…too sadistic.

"What is going on in there?" Harvey broke the silence, having clearly noticed that Mike's mind was elsewhere. Mike didn't know how to respond. He just looked at Harvey with his ocean eyes that were pleading something in an unspoken language.

He heaved his chest with an exhausted sigh, eyes scanning over Harvey's face. "I've done everything I can Harvey," he said in the same way a man would if he had just lost a war. "If there's nothing else I can do…no way for you to forgive me…I'm going to leave Pearson Har…Darby."

Skilled fingers brought a strip of gauze up to the still bleeding forehead along with some butterfly bandages. His fingers were cold and worked quickly, the look on his face not changing much.

"I drafted my resignation right after it happened," at those words Harvey's armor fell slightly.

"But I didn't turn it in because I thought I might be able to fix things. But clearly I can't."

The butterfly bandages closed down around the sealed up wound, dried blood dusted off his face in flakes.

Harvey was furious. Livid that he cared at all. He shouldn't have cared in the first place, and he sure as hell shouldn't care now. He should tell the kid to get out of his apartment, out of the firm, out of his life and never come back.

The only reason he reacted so poorly to the entire situation was because he cared too much. Because Mike was the last person on Earth he expected to betray him.

The cavernous space was filled with little breaths and silence. Mike obviously took it as a sign that Harvey stopped caring and his expression fell a thousand feet. His face stung, his chest burned, his heart was broken and he would give anything to get out of that damn apartment.

"Mike…I would prefer that you don't leave," the words came cooly from Harvey's lips.

"You gave me to Louis, you said 'We're through', why do you want me to stick around? So you can torture me with that cold expression everyday?"

"No."

"Do you ever just say what you really feel Harvey, or is it all a game of heirs and appearances to you?"

Harvey looked saddened for a moment, the corners of his mouth twisting downwards.

"Just tell me how you really feel. Tell me what you really want Harvey. Because I can't take it anymore," his voice cracked. "I can't stand that you hate me, I can't take the way you look at me, I can't sleep at night for god's sake."

He took a step closer, right into Harvey's personal space. "I _miss_ you Harvey."


	3. Chapter 3

The words hung in the air between the soft hum of the air conditioning and the soft swish of the dishwasher. Harvey's eyes looked tired and sad, but otherwise his expression looked unreadable.

With every second that limped by, Mike's expression sunk further into disappointment. His body moved, barely, about to spring into action, his feet begging to run for the door and into the elevator, out into the night air where unspoken words weren't suffocating him.

But before Mike's body could gather any sort of momentum, a warm hand made contact with his face. Harvey's hand was on the side of his face.

A thoughtful thumb was stroking the skin near the bright red cut on Mike's forehead.

For a moment Mike wondered just how hard he was hit…if this was some sort of hallucination or dream as he sat in a cab riding home.

But then the thumb would move, lightly brushing over the angry swollen skin that surrounded the gash.

Mike's inquisitive blue eyes looked at Harvey, studied him. But the lawyer's rich brown eyes were staring at the cut as if it contained a thousand answers that he couldn't reach.

A rich rose flush crept across Mike's cheeks at the realization he was being so intently studied. The touch was ghost light and called for a thousand goosebumps to rise all over Mike's body. It was a languid, intimate action that made all of the pain in his face melt away.

Then Harvey's gaze met his and Mike decided to do something he had thought of doing before but never indulged to dwell on.

The blonde closed the remaining space between them and kissed the soft pink lips in front of his. His mouth moved against Harvey's, drinking in the taste of the lips that he stared at every day since starting at Pearson whatever.

The mouth that curled with distain and perked with the right movie reference, the mouth that scolded him and praised him and molded him.

As Mike's lips moved, Harvey's remained receptive but he never kissed back. He didn't stop it either though, and this thought sent shockwaves of lust and desperation through his chest and to his groin.

After a moment Mike paused, staying intoxicatingly close to Harvey, looking over his former mentor's eyes and lips, drinking in the look of surprise and…want.

Mike reached up and with his thumbs lightly pulled Harvey's jaw down, opening his mouth, parting his red lips. God there was no better sight than seeing this man, eyes hooded, mouth open, his lack of anger or retreat a permission in itself.

"I need you," Mike whispered into Harvey's open mouth. The syllables tasted hot, salty and rich as Harvey savored them before his mouth was sealed with Mike's sweet and desperate kisses. And now his skilled practiced mouth was kissing Mike back ferociously, his hands digging into wherever they could find anchor.

Wandering hands broke down the gel in Harvey's chestnut hair and searched in vain for skin beneath the feather soft Tom Ford suit. His body pressed impossibly harder into his mentor's as his mouth begging for forgiveness with every kiss.


End file.
